Internet Trends for 2014 Report is a must read

Every so often you stumble across a report that contains so much insight that it’s futile to try to digest it all in one sitting. The latest annual Internet Trends Report from Mary Meeker, venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, is one of those, and it’s a must-read for those of us in digital marketing.

Mary Meeker

I spent a chunk of time digesting some of it this weekend, and I know I’ll be spending more time over the coming days. It’s a triumph of substance over style.

Key early themes for me (from the first third of the deck):

Decline of desktop: The number of desktop PCs shipped continues to decline, while mobile is accelerating. Tablets, meanwhile, have significant growth ahead and are showing exponential growth – currently shipping more units than PCs ever did. Meanwhile on the paid side, mobile shows significant room for continued growth while print ads remain “significantly over-indexed”.

Digital communications continues to shift: Change remains the constant. “Over the top” messaging systems (WhatsApp, WeChat, Shapchat, etc.) have acquired more than one billion users in under five years. Visual social networks are accelerating. “Invisible apps” such as Foursquare Swarm and Runkeeper Breeze – which only open when you know they “explicitly have something to say to you” are growing. The trend is away from platforms like Facebook, which have become mass communication vehicles, and towards smaller 1:1 interactions.

Industry disruption continues: Local industries (accommodation, food delivery, transport) are being disrupted by startups (Airbnb, Amazon Fresh, GrubHub, Uber). Bitcoin is disrupting the very meaning of a local currency. How can technology disrupt your sector?

Hat tip to Mitch Joel for drawing my eye to this.